Oil cannot recover by the will of the West alone.
I've never seen a greater group delusion than the notion that oil prices can somehow be decoupled from Russia or OPEC. And yet... some people seem to think it can.
I have so many issues with that article I linked I can barely begin.
To sum up one of the major points quickly. I posted another link which talked about the impacts the reduced burning of fossil fuels alone had in China. This isn't even stopping climate change. While reducing these could, over the long term have positive impacts on climate change. Just reducing the air pollution for 2 months, resulted in potentially 20x more lives saved than COVID-19 claimed in China. And we return to those losses when the emissions return.
And climate change claims lives every year in a variety of difficult to measure ways. Weather has become most extreme, causing more floods and natural disasters which claim lives directly, and indirectly. It ruins agriculture which impacts businesses which costs lives indirectly. And the problem go on.
But, none of that is really important. Oil right now is trading at less than a specialty Starbuck's drink. Even if you don't adjust for inflation, we haven't seen these prices in decades. And if you DO adjust for inflation... well, we're looking at prices for oil that most alive have probably never seen.
Is there anything Canada and it's politicians can do to stop this? Absolute not.
Proof? Look at the US.
No seriously. The US produces all the oil it needs domestically. It has refineries. It has an administration which presently gives zero fucks about the environment. It is doing everything in its power to support the industry.
Now. Is the oil industry in the US growing? No, it is collapsing. Fast. Despite all of this lack of dependence on external oil, and all of the necessary domestic infrastructure to extra, refine and deliver it hasn't been shielded in any substantial manner from the actions of Russia and OPEC.
Are there factors that make the US different from Canada? Sure, but they aren't things that make the situation better. The US has a larger, richer economy. They have more and better infrastructure. They have more international clout. They have less legislation and restrictions. And with all of that they are (and were even before COVID-19 and this trade war) still not growing at a sufficient rate to keep the industry alive.
No amount of innovation is going to change this fact. Because there is a dark secret about oil. You need demand to rise. And rise a lot to maintain the levels of profitability the industry saw historically. But, GLOBAL demand is decelerating and is already insufficient to prop up the industry.
We would need to waste money and intentionally burn more fossil fuels we don't even want or need to burn, polluting our air and exacerbating global warming simply to break the current cycle of demise.
Oh, and that cycle? It is going to end anyway. OIL IS A FINITE RESOURCE. We are running out of it. Accelerating demand? That will accelerate the rate at which we come to that hard end of the industry.
NONE of what I'm saying is theoretical. You don't even need to give a damn about climate change. The industry is DYING. VISIBLY. It was doing so, all on its own long before 2020.
I have so many issues with that article I linked I can barely begin.
To sum up one of the major points quickly. I posted another link which talked about the impacts the reduced burning of fossil fuels alone had in China. This isn't even stopping climate change. While reducing these could, over the long term have positive impacts on climate change. Just reducing the air pollution for 2 months, resulted in potentially 20x more lives saved than COVID-19 claimed in China. And we return to those losses when the emissions return.
And climate change claims lives every year in a variety of difficult to measure ways. Weather has become most extreme, causing more floods and natural disasters which claim lives directly, and indirectly. It ruins agriculture which impacts businesses which costs lives indirectly. And the problem go on.
But, none of that is really important. Oil right now is trading at less than a specialty Starbuck's drink. Even if you don't adjust for inflation, we haven't seen these prices in decades. And if you DO adjust for inflation... well, we're looking at prices for oil that most alive have probably never seen.
Is there anything Canada and it's politicians can do to stop this? Absolute not.
Proof? Look at the US.
No seriously. The US produces all the oil it needs domestically. It has refineries. It has an administration which presently gives zero fucks about the environment. It is doing everything in its power to support the industry.
Now. Is the oil industry in the US growing? No, it is collapsing. Fast. Despite all of this lack of dependence on external oil, and all of the necessary domestic infrastructure to extra, refine and deliver it hasn't been shielded in any substantial manner from the actions of Russia and OPEC.
Are there factors that make the US different from Canada? Sure, but they aren't things that make the situation better. The US has a larger, richer economy. They have more and better infrastructure. They have more international clout. They have less legislation and restrictions. And with all of that they are (and were even before COVID-19 and this trade war) still not growing at a sufficient rate to keep the industry alive.
No amount of innovation is going to change this fact. Because there is a dark secret about oil. You need demand to rise. And rise a lot to maintain the levels of profitability the industry saw historically. But, GLOBAL demand is decelerating and is already insufficient to prop up the industry.
We would need to waste money and intentionally burn more fossil fuels we don't even want or need to burn, polluting our air and exacerbating global warming simply to break the current cycle of demise.
Oh, and that cycle? It is going to end anyway. OIL IS A FINITE RESOURCE. We are running out of it. Accelerating demand? That will accelerate the rate at which we come to that hard end of the industry.
NONE of what I'm saying is theoretical. You don't even need to give a damn about climate change. The industry is DYING. VISIBLY. It was doing so, all on its own long before 2020.
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